The Raven
by damnedscribblingwoman
Summary: The war is over, but for Draco the fight is just beginning. Deceived and betrayed, he wants nothing more than to take revenge against Harry for stealing his powers. He finds a surprising ally in Hermione, whose memories were lost during the war.
1. Prologue

**AN: My thanks to my wonderful betas, Raistlin and Cali. You guys are awesome. Any remaining mistakes are my own.**

 **Written for Round 6 of the Dramione Couples Remix (2015). The original couple was Maleficent and Diaval, from the movie _Maleficent_.**

* * *

It doesn't take much for Draco Malfoy to turn from Death Eater to spy to traitor. Maybe a glorious future awaits the pure-blood wizards and witches who follow Lord Voldemort, but Draco is less than impressed with their less than glorious present. His father might be happy to play lackey to a half-blood with delusions of grandeur, but there's at least one Malfoy alive who remembers that the Malfoy line goes back hundreds of years — to a time before William the Bastard started dreaming of conquests; to a time before the Founders laid eyes on the Black Lake.

Those are dangerous thoughts, but there's little Draco can do to stop them. They fill his head at night, crowding out the terror and the panic that have been his constant companions for longer than he cares to admit. He can barely pinpoint the moment when everything changed, but he suspects — he knows — it was on that night, on top of the Astronomy Tower. And he doesn't known why, at first. It takes him a while to realise that it is the wand — Dumbledore's wand, the Dark Lord's wand — which calls to him, talks to him, fills his head with thoughts of pride and honour and treason.

He stops thinking of it as the Dark Lord's wand and starts thinking of it as his own. He can feel its pull; he can hear it calling. It belongs to him and he wants it back. He doesn't do anything foolish, however — his is an ambition tempered by patience and cunning. He makes his plans and bids his time, and it would have been the perfect heist, masterfully executed, had it not been for Narcissa's death. Draco has forgiven his father much — even dying — but he will never forgive him this.

He will never forgive Voldemort either.

That night Draco goes into his room — even power-crazed villains need sleep — and walks out again, the Elder Wand held firmly between his fingers. It is impulsive and mad, and it shouldn't have worked, but Draco does not question his good luck.

The Order of the Phoenix welcomes him suspiciously at first, and then with open arms. Draco has secrets to tell and they are only too eager to listen. He may be a Death Eater and a Malfoy to boot, but they put much store by the sort of redemption bought and paid for in the field of battle.

But even if he sides with the angels, no Malfoy has ever turned his back on a bit of black magic should it prove useful. The Malfoy collection is old and vast, and holds more dark secrets than even Voldemort could dream up. There's a spell — old, and dark, and dangerous — that allows the fusion of a wand core with the soul of its master, and who better to try it than the master of the Elder Wand? Draco knows Harry would not approve — Harry who against all odds has become someone precious to him — but Draco has always preferred to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

The spell is difficult and costly and dangerous, and it almost kills him, but in the end it's worth it. The Elder Wand is now part of him, and he holds more power than any other living wizard. He's more powerful than Grindelwald before him, more powerful than Dumbledore was; he could almost bet that he's more powerful than Voldemort himself. And he never need fear that someone could take the Elder Wand from him.

Harry is not amused. Shouting is involved, and recriminations, and horrified looks filled with Gryffindor self-righteousness. Draco veers the conversation in more pleasant directions, and Harry lets himself be distracted from the fact that his once nemesis (his now what? Boyfriend? Lover? Guy he invariably ends up sleeping with despite the fact that they spent the better part of their formative years butting heads?) now has the potential to become a worse tyrant than their currant annoyance of an evil wizard.

The other members of the Order of the Phoenix take the news better than Harry. It's been a bloody, costly war, and they've lost too many people to be overly fussy with morality, or unduly concerned with the dangers of another wizard too powerful for his or anyone else's good. Outnumbered and overruled, Harry keeps his opinions to himself, though Draco still catches him staring at him every now and then, his expression haunted and worried.

Draco wishes he could prove to him that he has nothing to worry about. He wants the same things Harry does. Peace for one, and to be able to go home, and for someone to come up with a better way to remove blood stains from white fabric, or failing that, for there to be fewer blood stains in need of removal. Draco is the spoilt only child of one of the richest families in Britain; war does not agree with him. And when peace comes, he promises to be good and to use his extraordinarily enhanced powers to do nothing more nefarious than float a cup of tea from the kitchen to his desk. Scout's honour.

He doesn't explain that to Harry in so many words, but the other wizard seems far less concerned with Draco's new-found powers when they're both behind closed doors, clothes left haphazardly on the bedroom floor. As it turns out, not all of Draco's powers derive from the Elder Wand.

Harry finds and destroys the remaining Horcruxes. The final battle is fought in the Ministry, the last Death Eater stronghold, deemed so impregnable with its tapestry of defencive spells that the fools thought it a safe place for their families and loved ones — for even monsters, as it turns out, have families and loved ones to worry about.

It's a blood bath. There's a fine line between good guys and bad guys, and never so fine as in the middle of battle. Voldemort dies early — a death so anti-climatic as to be meaningless — but the killing doesn't stop there. They've all lost too much, suffered for too long and watched too many of their own die, and that rage becomes an entity unto itself, unleashed in all directions until everything around them is smoke and screams, and the metallic taste of blood. Harry and some of the others - Kingsley, Moody, some of the Weasleys — try to put a stop to it, but to no avail. Draco leads and the mob follows. It is a day of retribution, and they will have their revenge.

There are prisoners too. Filthy, starved, locked away in the dark corners of the lower levels. They all find renewed energy when handed a wand, all too eager to get even with their former captors.

Draco finds her in the Department of Mysteries, chained to a wall in a room just off the Hall of Prophecies. Hermione Granger is a shadow of her former self, pale and gaunt, dressed in tattered robes that don't cover the large bruises and cuts in her legs and arms. She scurries to the corner when he enters, as far as the clicking chains will allow her, never turning her back to him. Her crouching posture puts him in mind of a cornered animal, ready to pounce. There's no recognition in her eyes, and she doesn't respond to his soothing entreaties, her body tensing even more as he slowly moves towards her.

Her wide eyes fix a point behind him, and it's all the warning Draco needs before all hell breaks lose. The four Death Eaters have the element of surprise — barely — but Draco has the Elder Wand and the unshakable belief that having killed the Dark Lord, he won't be brought down by underlings. That surety serves him almost as well as the wand, and before long the walls are splattered with the blood and entrails of idiots who would've done better to turn and run when they had the chance.

Granger is no longer shaking in the corner. She's standing a few feet from the wall, as far as the chains will allow her, gazing calmly at the macabre scene in front of her. Draco _vanishes_ the chains, but she doesn't move until he's right in front of her, and then just to thank him in the same detached tone he's seen in shell-shocked victims before. She doesn't know who he is, but he killed the ones who hurt her, and that's as much as she needs to know.

He's about to ask a question when a commotion outside startles Granger out of her trance. The terrified witch turns into a raven, flapping her wings frantically for a few seconds before perching herself on Draco's shoulder. It's the wrong animal. Her Animagus form had been a cat before, but it does not surprise him that after having spent so long in captivity, it should've changed into something with wings.

Harry bursts in, stopping in his tracks at the sight of the room around him, which is filled with pools of blood, and brain matter, and body parts. A different man might have cowed under the disgusted look Harry gave him, but Draco can feel nothing but indignation that he should have to explain himself. What has he done to them that they haven't done to others ten times over? They were no innocent bystanders and he won't apologise for the manner of their passing, for he did nothing to them that they would not have done to him, given half the chance.

Gryffindors can seldom be reasoned with when caught in the middle of some moral crusade, however, and the argument quickly escalates into a shouting match. Draco can almost feel the pull of the wand, tempting him to do something incredibly stupid and that he'll no doubt regret, so he just opts for a strategic exit instead, Apparating himself at Malfoy Manor.

There was still a battle going on and a better man would no doubt have stayed and help clean up, but he's done enough for the day. He gave them their victory; they can finish up.

House-elves gather around him, fussing over his robe and bringing him a goblet of wine, and only then does he realise Granger is still with him, when she starts fidgeting on his shoulder, quickly transferring her weight from leg to leg and back again, croaking nervously at the elves.

He dismisses the house-elves and spends the best part of an hour trying to coax her into turning back, but the witch doesn't so much as blink. Granger the woman was always stubborn, and it surprises him not a bit that Granger the bird should be too. He has the house-elves draw her a bath and put out some of his mother's old clothes for her, and he leaves her on the master bedroom, perched on the old bust of some famous wizard or other.

Harry shows up later that night and Draco expects a fight, but the other wizard is either too tired or too demoralised for one. Harry helps himself to the bottles in the study and pours himself and Draco a drink. They drink in silence, avoiding each other's gaze. Draco recognises the calm before the storm, and knows that the fight will be ugly. He crossed some lines that day, but he's not sure that he was wrong in crossing them. War is an ugly business, much as Harry would like to think differently.

The fight never comes, however. Harry puts down his glass and reaches for Draco's, before kissing him. One thing leads to another, and soon they are both too busy and distracted to even remember what happened during the day. Draco thinks, just before falling asleep entangled in the other wizard, that if he's lucky they'll just put everything behind them as they've done before.

He's not sure at first what woke him up. The fire has died and the study is still mostly dark in the half-light of dawn. He closes his eyes again when a sharp pain in his chest brings tears to his eyes. Draco gasps, trying to sit up, but the pain spreads across his body until there's no space in his brain for anything else. He claws instinctively at his chest, and his fingers find the raised edges of the seal, etched on the left side of his chest, over his heart. By sheer force of will, Draco manages to get up and drag himself over to the mirror in the corner. He forces his eyes to focus on the red welts on his skin, just visible in the faint light of the early morning.

Panic grips him as he recognises the spell, as he realises what it's meant to do. A renewed wave of pain brings him to his knees and he can't help the scream that escapes his lips. It's like fire burning underneath the skin and daggers ripping apart his muscles, and screaming provides little relief from the excruciating, all-encompassing pain of his magic being torn out of him.

There's movement in the corner of his eyes and he's vaguely aware of the house-elves, who are too terrified to come any closer.

His voice is starting to break, but he can't stop screaming. The Cruciatus curse pales in comparison to this. Hands — human hands — reach tentatively to him, and he can faintly hear Granger's scared voice, asking him what to do. What can she do? How can she help?

There's nothing she can do. It's old magic, older than any half-blood should have known what to do with, and he was a fool to have let Potter close enough to use it. Voldemort had made many mistakes, but that was one he would never have made.

Draco holds on tightly to what little magic he has left, knowing he can't hold on for long. But he's a Malfoy, and this is his home, and the magic running through this walls — older even than Potter's little trick — answers to him still. There's a moment of perfect clarity as the magic of the manor engulfs him, and then everything is dark.


	2. In which there is a party

The upstairs gallery was dark and deserted, and Draco could watch without being seen the party taking place on the floor below. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the chaos and mayhem of the night of the assault on the Ministry, could still see the walls splattered with blood and hear the screams of the injured and dying. There was no blood now, and all the sound came from the band in the corner and from the chatter of a few hundred witches and wizards pretending the world hadn't almost come to and end.

The large hall was a tapestry of pointy hats and colourful robes. It was anyone's guess whether the new Minister of Magic would be an improvement on his predecessor, but he certainly knew how to throw a party. Everyone who was anyone was there. Pure-bloods, half-bloods, Mudbloods, even one squib — though who was he to point fingers?

The general merriment around the fringes of the room dimmed closer to the centre, around the imposing monument that served as a reminder of all the blood that had been spilt over the last three years — and so much of it in that very place. The memorial had been unveiled only a few days before and it was a massive block of solid black stone, impressive in size but otherwise unremarkable unless you happened to be close enough to notice the names engraved in golden script. Row after row, line after line, it listed all those who had died during the war. It was a long list, but it could have been longer still. His parents' names were not there, nor were the names of many of his friends. Only those who had died on the right side of the war got to be remembered and mourned.

The sound of wings flapping heralded Hermione's arrival. The raven landed on the marble balustrade and stared gravely at the party.

"Is it done?" Draco asked.

She pushed off the balustrade, rising up in the air, and morphed into her human form.

"It is done," she confirmed, smoothing the skirt of her dress. "I expect Potter will receive an owl before long."

"Good." Draco looked for Harry's form in the mass of people and had little trouble finding him. Even if he hadn't been following his movements for the better part of an hour, he only needed to look for the largest concentration of red-heads.

"We should leave," the witch said after a few minutes.

Draco glared at her, but Hermione — who not two months ago would not even make eye contact — held his gaze.

"We're not leaving," he said, looking back at the party. Harry had moved away from the pack of Weasleys and was now engaged in a spirited discussion with Kingsley.

The witch didn't say anything, but Draco could practically feel the disapproval radiating off her, nagging at him with an intensity that was as relentless as it was passive.

"You disagree?" he asked, unable to keep quiet. It's not that he cared for her opinion, but he could not argue with a disapproving glance.

"Your plan rests on your standing in the community," she said, taking a step back when Alastor Moody glanced in their direction. "To a degree, anyway. It's already going to be a difficult line to walk without you going down there and making a scene."

"I'm not going to make a scene," he scoffed.

"I'll remind you of this moment after you've gone down there and made a scene."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Remind me again why I keep you around?"

"Because you have all the magical ability of a Muggle and I can actually use a wand," she said with a smile whose sweetness only served to highlight the sting of her words.

"Well, it's certainly not because of your winning personality," he said.

Hermione smirked. "I am the joy of your life."

"You are the bane of my existence."

The witch smiled, unperturbed, glancing down at the party and swaying slightly from side to side, in time with the music. Her strapless black gown hugged her form in all the right places before widening into a feather-covered skirt, and the movement caused it to swing gently, like a bell. He had seen the scars on her arms before — from burns and cuts and curses — but the ones on her back and shoulders were new to him. How many more did she have, hidden from sight?

"What's with the outfit?" he asked.

Hermione blushed, suddenly self-conscious.

"Well, it _is_ a party," she said defensively. "Why are you the only one who gets to dress up?"

"Because if I'm going down there to make a scene," he said, stressing the words, "I need to look the part."

Hermione shrugged without meeting his gaze. "Maybe I want to go down there too," she said defiantly, full of Gryffindor bravado.

Draco adjusted his tie before offering her his arm with a challenging look. Hermione looked at it for a few seconds, before glaring at him.

"You're an ass," she said before turning into a raven and perching herself on top of the balustrade.

The wizard laughed. "Chicken," he said, poking her with a finger which he then very nearly lost to her sharp beak. "That attitude won't get you many friends, I'll have you know," he said, before adding, "Be ready to Apparate us out of here."

Without waiting for her to acknowledge his words, he turned and walked towards the staircase. He had known Hermione would not join him on the floor below — not on human legs, anyway — whatever she may say to the contrary. He had counted on it. Her name was listed among many others on the war memorial, under "Missing - Presumed dead", and it served his purposes for Harry to be none the wiser. The Death Eaters had used her like a toy for months, and she had no memories of a time before that. It made her skittish and wary of people, but it also made her unfailingly and unconditionally loyal to him.

The moment he stepped onto the main room, he was surrounded by witches and wizards wanting to shake his hand, talk to him, get on the good side of someone who was famous, powerful and wealthy enough that he could be of use to them and their families. Draco had watched it happen to his father for years.

No, he wasn't worried about his standing in the community. Harry was a war hero, but so was he — and so much more besides it. Few people had known about the Elder Wand, and he would bet that fewer even knew about Potter's little treachery. What they did know was that Draco Malfoy had fought with them, risked his life with them, and led their side to victory on more than one occasion, including on the night they had taken the Ministry. On top of that, he was both rich and well-connected. Despite Lucius' unfortunate tendency to end up on the losing side of wars, the Malfoy name still counted for much — and the Malfoy Gringotts vault for even more. Draco would have to be careful not to overplay his hand, but he had enough leeway that he wasn't worried.

"Malfoy." A croaking voice interrupted his conversation with a Mr Ainsworth, who was in the middle of a heartfelt and rather long-winded speech about the great things his department — the Department for the Regulation of Family Affairs — would do with the large and oh-so-generous donation Mr Malfoy had been oh-so-very-kind to bestow on them.

Draco excused himself before turning to face the new arrival. "Moody," he said by way of greeting.

"Did not think I'd be seeing you here," Mad-Eye said bluntly.

"And why not?" He knew perfectly well why not. What had transpired between him and Harry might not be general knowledge, but there were few secrets floating about that Alastor Moody was not privy to.

"Just did not think you'd be in the mood for partying, is all," he said with a shrug. "Who's your friend?"

Ah, so that's what the old man was after. Draco wondered how much he had seen with that damned eye of his.

"My friend?" he asked to buy himself some time to think of a better reply. If Mad-Eye was asking questions, he couldn't have seen enough to recognise Hermione.

"The young lady up in the gallery with you, looking mighty cosy. She looked familiar."

There was a time when Draco might have cowed under the old Auror's piercing gaze, but he was not fourteen years old anymore, and he had seen things far more terrifying than Mad-Eye Moody fishing for information. He was about to reply when someone grabbed his hand and hooked her arm with his.

"Professor," Pansy said with a beaming smile, "how sweet of you to remember me." Turning her attention to Draco, she added, pouting, "Draco, stop neglecting me. It's rude and exceedingly unattractive."

"My apologies." He raised her hand to his lips. "Moody, if you'll excuse me," he said, "I must attend to my date."

Mad-Eye waved them away with an unimpressed look, and Draco led Pansy across the room, until they were sufficiently away from the Auror not to be overheard.

"You're welcome," the witch said pointedly.

"Thank you," he said. "Your timing was impeccable."

Pansy grinned. "It always is. Though indulge my curiosity; who _was_ the girl you were with?"

"You know what they say, Pansy." He glanced around the room, trying to spot Harry. "Curiosity killed the cat."

"Ah, but satisfaction brought it back," quipped the witch.

Draco was starting to think his odds would have been better with Moody. "You've always asked too many questions, Pansy."

"I have a thirst for knowledge."

"You have a thirst for gossip." He glared at the witch, who raised her hands in surrender.

"There's no gratitude left in the world," she said with mock hurt.

"You'll live." Draco finally spotted Harry, who was storming across the room towards them, a scroll crumpled in his hand. "Show time," he muttered.

"You have no right." Harry struggled to keep his voice low, barely succeeding. Rage shook his whole body.

"Five lawyers and two judges beg to differ," Draco said pleasantly.

"He is my godson." They were starting to attract some curious glances from the people around them.

"True but immaterial. With Andromeda's death, I'm his last living blood relative. The law is on my side."

"Hang the law." The outburst earned Harry more than a few shocked looks from nearby witches and wizards. "I won't let you get away with this."

Draco smirked, opening his arms. "Try and stop me."

The wand was on Harry's hand so fast that Draco barely saw him draw it. There were gasps all around them, and the room grew eerily quiet. Even the band had stopped playing.

"You'd attack someone unarmed?" Draco asked nonchalantly. "That's not very sporting."

Ronald Weasley pushed his way past the crowd around them and whispered something in Harry's ear.

"It's a sad state of affairs when Weasley is the voice of reason," Pansy said in a clear voice. "Enough of this nonsense, Potter. Too much blood was spilt in this room for any of us to care for a re-enactment."

There were murmurs of agreement, causing Harry to glance around them for the first time and realise the size of their audience. The wizard lowered his wand reluctantly, his movements made stiff by impotent rage.

"This is not over," Harry said, the mother of all meaningless threats.

Draco's smile was all smugness as he bowed slightly before turning his back to the wizard and walking away, Pansy in tow.

"Now, you simply have to tell me what prompted _that_ ," she said.

Draco stopped at the edge of the room and leaned down, kissing her cheek. "Goodnight, Pansy."

She watched him go, calling after him, "Not fair, Malfoy."

Hermione caught up with him on the corridor outside, perching herself on his shoulder.

"So I made a scene," he said in response to her silent disapproval. "Sue me."

It was a clear but chilly night, and Draco quickened his step, in a hurry to get out of range of the anti-Apparition wards. He had just passed the invisible barrier when Potter caught up to them.

"Draco," he called. "Don't do this," he said in a tone that tugged at all the parts of him that still missed him. In spite of his better judgement, Draco stopped and turned.

"What did you think, Harry?" Bitterness and rage replaced his previous pretence of nonchalance. "That I would simply stand by and let you get away with what you did to me? That there would be no consequences?" _I trusted you_. The words were burned into his brain but he did not speak them. Potter had done more than steal his magic. He had broken something Draco hadn't even known was there.

"I did what was necessary."

"I hope the thought gives you comfort at night," Draco replied bitterly.

Neither spoke for a few moments, the space between them too filled with things they could not change and things they would not say. Harry made to touch Draco, but that was all it took for Granger to spring off her feet and dive at the wizard, pecking and scratching, wings flapping frantically. The unexpected onslaught forced Potter backwards. He tried to reach for his wand, but she never gave him a change, pecking viciously at his arms and face. Just as suddenly as she had started, she turned back. The moment her claws touched his outstretched arm, Draco felt the familiar pull of Apparition.


	3. In which there is a child

Hermione Apparated them at the edge of the Malfoy estate and immediately flew off towards the house, her black form vanishing into the night.

"That's nice, Granger," he called after her. "Really nice."

Muttering expletives under his breath, he picked his path with care, trying not to slip and struggling to keep warm. The London skies had been clear, but it was snowing in Wilshire and a thick white mantle covered the landscape.

It took him almost fifteen minutes to reach the house, with nothing to protect him against the fiendish cold but a cloak made for ballrooms and reception halls, not snowy winter nights. He soon forgot the cold, however. The closer he got to the house, the stronger the pull of the Manor's magic, filling the space in and all around him. It fell short of the power he had yielded even before he had got his hands on the Elder Wand — a magic that was boundless, and effortless, and his — but power was power, and he was glad of what little was left to him.

He found the witch in the drawing room, surrounded by a small army of house-elves, all of them struggling to find a good spot from which to see the contents of the cot set by the sofa. The house-elves scampered the minute he walked in, and Hermione raised a finger to her lips for him to be quiet.

"You could have Apparated us at the house," he complained.

"I miscalculated," she said with an innocent smile not meant to fool anyone. "Isn't he adorable?"

Teddy Lupin looked very much like any other child Draco had ever seen, short and small, with rounded features and dark brown hair — though knowing his mother, that was unlikely to last. At the moment he was sleeping peacefully — which, knowing kids, was also unlikely to last — arms outstretched, without a care in the world. It had to be nice, being that young and clueless.

"Arabella Figg was watching him?" he asked.

Hermione nodded, tucking the blanket around the child. "She put up quite a fight to stop them taking him — even with no wand. I think she actually bit one of the clerks."

Draco was about to reply when he felt it, a disturbance in the wards around the estate, like ripples on the surface of a pond, small and then larger as they grew outward. He instinctively looked out the window, where there was nothing to see but trees and darkness

"What?" Hermione asked, following his gaze.

"Potter," he said. "And someone else. Three… no, four people. They're fighting the wards."

The witch walked to the window, suddenly tense, and peered at the night outside. "Can they get past them?" she asked.

"No." Probably not. With enough power, enough brute force, most wards could be torn down — even Hogwarts had fallen eventually. But Potter did not have an army, and he was not half the wizard Voldemort had been — evil penchant for genocide notwithstanding. Centuries of Malfoys had weaved together those wards into a tapestry strong enough to survive invasions and civil strife. They could take one sanctimonious, treacherous prat. "Keep an eye on them," he said.

The cold draft that filled the room the moment the witch opened the window almost killed the fire, but Draco barely registered the drop in temperature as he watched her disappear in the distance, black wings dissolving into darkness. Teddy Lupin was only the beginning. By the time he was done, Harry would wish he had never set foot in Malfoy Manor.

The sudden wailing startled him out of his musings, and he spun around and stared wide-eyed at the crying infant, who was less than pleased at having been so rudely awoken by the sudden arrival of the English winter right there in that living room, which was cold and strange and most definitely not where he had been when he had fallen asleep with a pat on the head from Mrs Figg, who smelled like mothballs and gave him cookies.

Waving the window shut, Draco walked up to the cot and stared some more, unsure of what to do.

"Quit that already," he said, sternly. Teddy stopped crying long enough to stare back at Draco with big, tear-filled eyes, and then redoubled his efforts, reaching a register that by all rights should only be audible to Thestrals and house-elves. "You're to stop that this instant," Draco insisted, feeling ridiculous even as he said it. Where was Granger when he needed her?

A hiccough distracted the infant from his current efforts to destroy Draco's eardrums. He glanced around with a puzzled look and then stared back at Draco, motioning to him with grabby hands.

"Up," he said.

"Absolutely not." There was absolutely no way he was picking up the werewolf spawn.

"Up, up, up!" The child demanded, his hair cycling through blue, purple and red, and back again. As Draco showed no inclination to pick him up, Teddy restarted his crying, now at double the volume for extra effect. Rolling his eyes, Draco picked him up, swaying from one leg to the other until the crying subsided.

"I'm starting to think your godfather got the better end of this bargain," he said.

"Hungwy," was Teddy's reply to that.

Draco was an only child. All his friends were only children. He had little interest in kids, and no knowledge of them beyond the fact that after enough time passed, they grew out of it. He had no idea what children Teddy's age — how old was he, anyway? — ate, other than that they most certainly ate something.

"Do you want milk?" he asked.

"No."

"Bread?"

"No."

"Soup?"

"No."

"Do you know any words other than 'no'?"

"No."

The wizard sighed, considering the merits of boarding school, and what a pity it was that they didn't accept toddlers.

Hermione arrived soon after to find Draco on the sofa, feeding cake to the subdued child, whose hair had settled on a pale shade of blue. Both man and boy looked up when the window flew open and she glided in, morphing back into her human form as she did.

"Should he be eating that?" she asked.

Draco shrugged. "It's carrot cake. Carrot is a vegetable."

"Bird," Teddy said, making grabby hands at Hermione, who sat across from them on the coffee table. "Bird," he insisted until Draco put him down. He walked up to the witch on unsteady legs and poked at her as if to test the solidity of this woman-bird creature. The witch petted his hair with a delighted smile.

"They're gone?" Draco asked. He could no longer feel the wards creaking under Harry's poor excuse for an assault.

Hermione nodded. "Potter wanted to keep at it, but Moody put some sense into him. That eye of his gives me the creeps. It kept finding me on the tree line."

"Mad-Eye won't keep him away for long." Teddy climbed up on the coffee table, using Hermione for support, and started playing with the witch's hair. "Not that it matters," Draco added. "They can't get in, and werewolf spawn here isn't going anywhere."

Hermione set Teddy down on the floor again and, to his great delight, turned into a raven.

"Pwetty bird," he said excitedly, petting her very gently with an open palm.

Draco watched in silence as the witch led Teddy on a merry chase across the living room, skipping ahead only enough that the boy wouldn't actually manage to catch her. The wizard sunk further down on the sofa, bone-weary. It had been an exhausting night, preceded by three exhausting years, and he couldn't imagine that the times ahead would be all that restful. Revenge was tiring business.

That morning three months ago, as he had lain on the cold, hard stone floor of his study, too shell-shocked and broken to do anything but prod at the edges of his tattered magic, he had wished for a death that was fast and clean, instead of that sentence to go on living torn in half. Rage had come after, a rage that burned hot enough to set fire to the world, and he could've killed Harry on that rage alone, if only he had been able to motivate himself to get out of bed. Those weeks had passed in a haze of fog, of which he remembered little else besides the house-elves bringing him food, and Hermione's dark, silent form perched above his bedroom door.

The house had kept him alive, with its history-filled halls and portrait-covered walls. There were nine hundred years of Malfoys on those walls, all of them powerful and wealthy and well-connected. His was an old family, a proud family, a family that did not fall to the machinations of half-bloods with delusions of grandeur. It hadn't fallen to Lord Voldemort and it would not fall to Harry-freaking-Potter.

Sanctimonia Vincet Semper. He did not need magic to make good on the words of his House. He was rich and influential, and he would make Harry wish they had never crossed paths.

Teddy had fallen asleep on the carpet by the fire, and Hermione was watching him sleep with a soft smile. The fire reflected on her curls gave her an otherworldly glow that put him in mind of pixies and fairies — the Muggle, make-believe sort, who lived in trees and danced under the moonlight.

"I need you to take a message to Pansy first thing tomorrow," he said. There was no rest for the wicked.

"I'm not an owl," she said without looking at him, no longer smiling.

"First thing tomorrow," he repeated.

She turned her head to look at him, her eyes dark and inscrutable. He might be the one pulling the strings, but sometimes he wondered how many secrets hid behind her composed expression.

Hermione was the first to look away.

"As you wish," she said, gazing at the fire.


	4. In which Draco has a plan

"Did the Italians finally kick you out?" he asked Blaise, shaking his hand and gesturing for a house-elf to take his and Pansy's cloaks.

"They begged me to stay," Blaise said. "Said I was the best they had ever seen. Threw a party in my honour. Alas, Mother wanted to return."

"Yes, I'm sure it was quite the national loss," Pansy said, sitting down next to Blaise on the sofa.

"It most certainly was," he said. "I am now a fully qualified Healer, unlike you wastrels, who've been doing fuck all for three years."

Blaise fished a copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ from behind a sofa cushion and raised an eyebrow in Draco's direction.

"Some of us were busy fighting a war," Pansy said.

Putting down the book, Blaise smiled sardonically at the witch. "Do tell Parkinson, how much fighting did _you_ do?"

"Settle down, children," Draco said, bored. From the corner of his eye he saw Hermione land on the old grandfather clock. "We have business to attend to."

"And me thinking you merely wanted the pleasure of our company." Pointing her wand at the tea pot, Pansy poured herself a cup. "I feel utterly deceived."

"I'm sure you'll find the fortitude to soldier on," he said. "I need an in with the goblins."

"The Gringotts goblins?" she asked, dunking a biscuit in her tea.

"Obviously. Does your cousin Harold still have some contacts at the bank?"

"A couple," she said, non-committally. "But you know Harold; he never does anything that won't benefit him in some way. Where he gets such a mercenary spirit from, I have yet to learn."

Knowing Pansy, Draco rather suspected Harold's unfortunate mercenary spirit to be something of a family trait.

"Money is no object," he said. Malfoys had deep pockets.

"Harold will be happy to know it. What do you need?"

He needed his magic back and Harry's head on a pike, but he'd settle for what he could get. "I need Bill Weasley to lose his job, and in such a way that he'll have a great deal of trouble finding a new one."

Pansy frowned, but asked no questions. "That will take more than money," she said instead. "You need the goblins to want to help, which they won't. And they can't be bought with gold."

"Have your cousin tell his contacts that if they can make it happen, I can deliver to them the sword of Ragnuk the First."

"No, you can't," Blaise scoffed. "The sword of Ragnuk the First is Gryffindor's Sword, and I very much doubt you're in possession of that."

"Not that sword." Though Draco wished he were in possession of Gryffindor's Sword. He'd melt it and force it down Potter's throat. " _Nodwydd_ , the sword the goblin king actually got to keep. It's been lost since the 13th century."

"And by lost, you mean…," Pansy started with a smirk.

Draco grinned back and shrugged. "By lost I mean gathering dust in one of the Manor's broom closets." More accurately, it was gathering dust in one of the Manor's vaults, but that was more than they needed to know — those vaults were a closely kept secret, one shared only by people with Malfoy for a surname.

Blaise picked another gingerbread biscuit, looking pensive. "How did Weasley get on your bad side that you're willing to part with a priceless antique just to get him fired?"

Draco seriously needed friends who didn't ask so many questions.

"He cut ahead in line at _Flourish and Blotts_. You know how seriously I take the printed word."

"Now, Draco," Blaise said, "it's not very nice to ask for favours if you're not going to share."

"I haven't asked _you_ for a thing, Zabini," he pointed out.

Blaise's smile was at once amused and calculating. "Oh, but you will. What can I do for you, Draco?"

His friends knew him far too well for comfort.

"Your stepfather is still the Ambassador to Romania, isn't he?"

"Rupert, yes. Stepfather number three. Love the man. Far less annoying than numbers two and five, though not quite as fun to mess with as numbers one and six. What interest could you possibly have in Romania?"

"It just so happens that Charlie Weasley works there."

"You're not going just after Bill Weasley," Pansy said, excitedly. "You're going after the whole lot of them. What game are you playing, Draco?"

Teddy chose that very moment to run into the drawing room wearing nothing but a diaper, chased by a very harried, out-of-breath house-elf.

"Mr Teddy, sir, Mr Teddy, sir," repeated the poor creature between gulps of breath. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the three of them, and Teddy took advantage of the momentary respite to throw himself at Draco's legs with a victorious yelp.

Blaise was the first one to recover from the shock. "A love child?" he asked, amused. "You really have been keeping secrets, Malfoy."

"I'm so sorry, Master Draco. So very sorry." The house-elf threw herself to the ground, bowing her head as far as it would go. "Misty tried to keep him busy, but he ran off. He just ran off and Misty couldn't keep up. Misty is truly, really, very extremely sorry. Misty will suffer any punishment the master deems appropriate."

Draco rolled his eyes, annoyed both by the house-elf's inability to control the toddler and by the pathetic subservience of her apology.

"Just get him out of here," he said, trying to keep his temper.

Misty hurried to obey, but Teddy was having none of it. He held on for dear life to Draco's leg, kicking back at the house-elf with chubby legs that were deceptively strong. Pansy giggled and Blaise made a number of choice remarks about Draco's inability to control his brood, in a clear reference to both the boy and the house-elf. Draco's patience, which had been hanging by a thread, finally snapped.

"What use are you to me if you can't perform a simple task?" The harshness of the tone startled both Misty and Teddy, who stared open-eyed at the wizard.

Misty immediately fell to the ground again, whimpering apologies and offering a painfully detailed list of the many ways he could punish her. He was about to make good use of that list when Hermione flew down to the back of his chair, croaking a warning. Not needing any more displays of insurrection, Draco bit back his anger and dismissed the house-elf.

Safe now to do as he pleased, Teddy let go of the leg and wandered off to the coffee table, where he grabbed a dangerously full cup of tea. Seeing where that was headed, Draco took the cup away, quickly replacing it with a biscuit.

"If that isn't a charming display of fatherly concern, I don't know what is," Blaise said, mockingly.

"That's Potter's godson," Pansy cut in, as if suddenly realising the answer to a riddle she had been working over. "That's why he was so pissed off yesterday. None of this is about the Weasleys. It's about Potter."

"Well, that makes far more sense," Blaise said. "'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a Malfoy scorned.'"

Draco missed Crabbe and Goyle. They did as they were told without asking questions, or reading into things, or reaching conclusions of any sort. It was a simple relationship that he hadn't properly cherished until it was far too late.

"Blaise, don't quote Muggles in my house," he said. "In fact, don't quote Muggles at all. It's impolite, to say nothing of pretentious.

"You're just bitter because you're now the glorified babysitter of a half-breed," Pansy said with a smirk. "How well did you think this through?" Seeing Blaise's questioning look, the witch said, "He's Lupin's kid. And god knows what that freak mother of his was. He's certainly a very cute half-breed, though."

She made to touch Teddy's bubblegum-pink hair, but Hermione immediately flew at her, screaming furiously as she pecked and scratched the air just short of hitting Pansy. The other woman fell back with a yelp, immediately reaching for her wand, but Draco did not give her a chance to use it.

"Enough," he said. The shock wave he cast in Hermione's direction did nothing more than toss her a few feet away. She cawed indignantly at him before flying back to the coffee table, positioning her body between Pansy and Teddy.

"Pwetty bird," the boy said happily, holding out a biscuit for her.

"You need to keep your pets on a shorter leash, Draco," Pansy said, out of breath. "That thing is a bloody menace."

Pansy and Blaise did not stay much longer after that. They had their instructions, and they were no use to him sitting there gossipping over tea and biscuits. Pansy was the first one to go, taking the Floo Network out of his study. Blaise was about to follow when he turned back, glancing past Draco at the drawing room.

"Pansy may not know a raven from a sparrow," he said with an amused glint in his eye. "But I know an Animagus when I see one. Who's that?"

"You ask too many questions, Blaise."

"And you keep too many secrets, Draco."

Not as well as he would wish.

He watched Blaise disappear in the greenish flames of the Floo before marching back to the living room, where Hermione was pouring herself a cup of tea.

"That was uncalled for," he said, picking up _Alice_ and tossing it at the witch, who caught it just in time to stop it colliding with the tea pot. "And keep your damn books out of sight."

There was nothing apologetic in the look she gave him. "If she calls me a pet again, I'll gouge her eyes out."

"Knock yourself out," he said distractedly, sitting down on the sofa. "Did you get the documents from Adkins?"

Hermione pulled a stack of scrolls from a pocket that should've been too small to accommodate them.

"You now own most of the Weasley debt," she said, clearing away the tea and biscuits with a wave of her wand and unrolling some of the scrolls. "There's enough here to get you their house. Probably enough to get you George Weasley's shop, too. It's all tied up together."

"We're not going after the shop." Draco leaned his head back against the sofa.

"It'd be foolish to pass up on it," Hermione pressed, perusing the documents. "We only need to—"

"We're not going after the bloody shop." He might be a vengeful bastard, but he was a vengeful bastard who remembered that Fred Weasley had saved his life. He wasn't going after his twin.

He thought of The Burrow, with its mismatched furniture and cramped domesticity, a patchwork quilt turned into a house — messy and colourful and warm. He had been welcome in Arthur Weasley's home, fed at Molly Weasley's table, and a better man would walk away and let them be. He had once thought he could be such a man, that he could leave the worst parts of himself behind and be the sort of person who could stand tall among decent people — despite Dumbledore, and despite the Dark Mark on his arm.

Turns out no one but himself had thought there was anything better to be found inside Draco Malfoy.

His fingers traced the edges of the seal — easy to feel even over the fabric of his robe. One more scar he would never get rid of.

Hermione sat down on the sofa next to him and ran a hand through his hair, catching his gaze.

"Stop brooding," she said. He was so used to her raven form — perched on his arm or riding on his shoulder, pecking at him for attention or as a reprisal, or simply because she was bored — that he sometimes forgot what it was like to be touched by human hands. "There's a kid's broom in a cupboard somewhere. Let's take Teddy outside and let him play with it."

"He's naked and it's snowing." There was no power in the universe that could persuade him to get up from that sofa.

"And no one in the history of humankind has been able to put winter clothes on a child."

"He'll break his neck," he said, ignoring her sarcasm.

"Nonsense. It's a toy broom; it will barely lift two feet off the ground."

Hermione, displaying a level of persuasion that should worry him more than a little, somehow succeeded in dragging him off the couch.

"This will end in tears," he said, following her outside with Teddy on his shoulders.


	5. In which alcohol plays a part

It didn't take very long for Harry to realise the exact nature of Draco's little project. There was nothing that could definitely connect him to any of the misfortunes that had suddenly befallen the Weasley family — Bill's dismissal from Gringotts amidst rumours of embezzlement, Charlie's expulsion from Romania in consequence of a Dragon trafficking scandal, Mr Weasley being put on leave from the Ministry pending an investigation — but Harry had never needed much proof to point a finger in Draco's direction, and he didn't require any now.

That suited Draco just fine. He wanted Harry to know who was hurting the people he loved. He wanted him to know why.

He couldn't touch Ginny, who was back at Hogwarts, and he wouldn't touch George on account of his twin, but that still left plenty of Weasleys whose life he could make miserable — Percy, who lost his position as head of the Department of Magical transportation; Ron, whose application to the Auror training programme was refused; Molly, who saw herself unable to withdraw what meagre funds the family still had at Gringotts.

He didn't touch Harry himself. The Boy Who Lived remained rich and famous and popular, and was well on his way to become an Auror, while the lives of his friends and loved ones burned and crashed around him. By the time the Weasleys lost The Burrow, he was about ready to murder Draco.

Not that he could prove a thing, of course.

Throughout it all, Draco remained — to all outward appearance — above reproach. He carefully bent to the mood of the day the lessons he had learnt from Lucius, knowing that the wizarding world would be less forgiving of pure-blood snobbery after the Second Wizarding War than it had been after the First. He donated to charities, he gave evidence at the trial of suspected Death Eaters, and he mingled with the rich and powerful while seeming to take an interest in the welfare of the poor and destitute.

 _The Daily Prophet_ adored him. And when they learnt that he was selflessly raising the orphan child of his deceased cousin — a war hero herself — thus healing the rift between the two sides of the family, they might have stopped short of building a statue in his honour, but only barely.

Harry could scream all he liked about Draco being behind all the terrible things happening to the Weasleys, but few people were likely to listen, and fewer even likely to take him seriously. And as for custody of Teddy, even had Draco not made sure to be extremely generous to all the people who had a say in the matter, he was unlikely to get it back. Wizarding law, like wizarding society, was biased towards blood — blood purity, blood status, blood kin.

It didn't stop Harry trying. The Chosen One had never learnt the virtues of subtlety, and he didn't attempt it now. He pestered clerks and lawyers and judges, stalked the many employees of the Department for the Regulation of Family Affairs, and sent an endless string of owls towards the Manor, with missives that ranged from pleas and attempts to reason with Draco, to howlers carrying rage-filled threats.

Draco read every single one before putting them away in the same box that still kept the letters and notes Harry had sent him during the war, when they had both envisioned a very different future for themselves. He never read those, but he didn't need to. The words were carved into his brain, bitter reminders that pretty words were just that, and that trust was always misplaced.

The Manor was quiet and dark that winter evening; even the portraits on the walls were silent and still. Draco emerged from his study and wondered at the quiet, which had become so unusual in the house. Teddy had the energy of a small army, and made almost as much noise. He was quiet now, though, wherever he was.

Draco made his way to the nursery upstairs, his steps muffled by the runner. He heard Hermione's clear voice before he reached the door. She was sitting on a rocking chair by the fire, with Teddy on her lap. The boy's gaze was fixed on the book floating in front of them, the pages turning magically whenever Hermione reached the end of the page.

It was a Muggle book, a story he hadn't heard before. He wasn't sure how the ancestral home of one of the oldest pure-blood families in Britain had become so full of Muggle books, but he knew who to blame for it. Even without her memories, Hermione's literary tastes remained decidedly Muggle-ish.

He stayed on the doorway, silent and unseen, almost as enthralled by her storytelling as Teddy. The little boy was overjoyed when they finally reached the inevitable happy ending, but Draco only felt empty. Fairy tales were stories for children, and he was too old to find comfort in happily ever afters that found no echo in reality.

Feeling the sudden need to put some space between himself and the quiet innocence of that family portrait, he retired back to his study. The only light came from the fireplace, and Draco did not bother with candles. He headed straight for the liquor cabinet in the corner and poured himself a generous amount of firewhisky, which he immediately drank without pausing to taste it. He served himself a second glass and moved to the small sofa in the corner. Everyone was busy and out of the way, he could get drunk at his leisure.

His solitary pity-party did not remain solitary for long. Less than an hour had passed when Hermione waltzed in, lighting the candles around the room with a wave of her wand.

"You should have stayed," she said. "We read _Beauty and the Beast_ next. Much more exciting than _Sleeping Beauty_." Taking his glass, she sniffed its contents before tasting the firewhisky. "This is vile."

"Stop stealing it, then." He took the glass back, willing it full again.

"That is no way to treat your guests." Hermione sat next to him on the sofa, tucking her legs under her.

"You live here; you're not a guest."

"That is no reason to abuse me in this abominable fashion."

Draco rolled his eyes and got up with a sigh. He opened a bottle of vintage elf-made wine and returned to the sofa, offering it to Hermione before settling back down.

"Was that so very difficult?" she asked with a maddening smile.

"I don't know why I keep you around."

Hermione laughed, leaning her head back against the sofa. "You know perfectly well why you keep me around."

They drank in companionable silence for a few minutes, he and the girl he had once called a Mudblood. It was a strange, strange world, filled with unexpected twists and turns.

Draco was the first one to break the silence. "You should tell him wizard stories."

"These stories have magic too."

"Not proper magic. And there's nothing to be learnt from Muggle fairy tales. Wizard ones always have a lesson."

"Is that so?" He could hear the smile in her voice. "How much did you learn from the _Tale of the Three Brothers_ , oh Master of the Elder Wand?"

Hermione shrieked when the wine glass shook violently in her hand, spilling half its contents over her.

"Cut it out." She sent a wave of energy towards him, but Draco, who was expecting it, simply moved his glass out of the way.

"You missed," he said, sticking his tongue out at her.

"I meant to miss." Hermione dried herself with her wand and quickly emptied the glass, before Draco had the chance to waste any more of that extremely rare, exceedingly expensive wine. With a disapproving glance in his direction, she got up to get herself a refill. "Muggle fairy tales have lessons too," she said, her back to him.

"True love conquers all is not a lesson, it's a fiction."

Hermione glanced at the ornate box resting atop the fireplace mantelpiece.

"You should burn those," she said, moving back to the sofa.

"I know." It was like constantly rubbing his tongue against an aching tooth just to make sure it still hurt. It was a bad, masochistic habit that he was far too fond of.

"Remembrance Day is in two weeks," she said.

As if Draco would forget. The Ministry had been planning the Remembrance Day for months, and it was supposed to be an eventful day. The Minister himself would be awarding special decorations to those who had performed above and beyond during the war. Harry was being honoured. To the other wizard's great disgust, so was Draco.

"What about it?" he asked.

"I should go with you."

"Was that ever in question?" Draco seldom left the manor without Hermione. He had no magic, nor any wand with which to use it, but he could aim her just as effectively.

"I don't mean like a raven. I mean like me." Hermione rolled her eyes at his surprised expression. "You're running out of Weasleys, Draco. What better way to twist the knife some more than to have Hermione Granger, Harry's dead best friend, show up on your arm?"

Of course she'd know about that. "How long have you known?"

Hermione smiled, playing with her glass. "I've known for ages. You call me by my real name. How long did you think it would take me to figure it out?"

Longer than this, if he were to be perfectly honest. It had been an arrogant assumption. With or without her memories, Hermione was who she had always been — curious, inquisitive, and far too good at finding out the answers to questions no one had thought to ask.

"You know who you are," he said, "who you were to them, and you're still helping me?" He wasn't worried yet, but maybe he should be.

She was quiet long enough that he thought she might not answer. "I don't remember them," she finally said. "They are strangers to me. But I remember you getting me out of that place, and I remember what you did to the people who hurt me. I also remember what Potter did to you, what he took from you. When you got me out, I told you that you could count on me for anything you needed. I meant that. Even if what you need is someone else to use against him."

There was no version of Draco that deserved that kind of loyalty, nor did he kid himself into thinking there was. And some part of him — a not so small, not so insignificant part of him — was glad that Memory Charms could not be reversed. Not without leaving a mind so broken that no one with sense would dare attempt it. Because Draco, who trusted no one, trusted her, trusted this Hermione who was so completely his.

Maybe Harry was right, and he deserved nothing short of impaling.

Too drunk to overthink it, Draco leaned forward and kissed her — a kiss that was part gratitude and part guilt, and all foolishness. He had made enough bad decisions — some in that very room — to recognise one more, but just then he didn't care. The world had almost come to an end, everyone he had ever loved was gone or a treacherous prat, and he would never get his magic back. His life was messed up enough that one bad decision more or one bad decision less shouldn't make too big a difference.

Hermione pulled away and stared at him, eyes wide open and lips slightly parted. For a second neither of them moved, and suddenly she was closing the space between them again, kissing him with an eagerness that spoke of her willingness to make some bad decisions of her own.

She climbed onto his lap, her legs on either side of him, her hands warm as they tugged at his clothes, trying to undo the fastenings of his robes. He was too distracted to help her, his hands busy getting acquainted with the soft curves of her legs, and his attention firmly held by her lips and tongue, by the feel of her body against his.

The fire in the corner flared up, the heat of the flames touching his naked skin, even at a distance. Hermione stopped at the sight of the black mark, large and grotesque against his pale skin. She did not have many memories, but too many of the ones she did have were of people with marks just like that one. Time stopped as she she ran her fingers around the edge of it, lost in thought.

Draco wished he could burn the bloody thing off his arm. He caressed her cheek with his other hand, wanting to bring her back from wherever her mind had gone just then. Hermione looked back at him and smiled — a small smile that was just a little bit off, a little bit forced.

He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers — a soft, slow, gentle kiss that couldn't change a thing. She melted into it with a sight, deepening the kiss, and soon neither of them could remember the scars they carried nor why they had them.

Hermione pushed him away long enough to disentangle herself from her tunic, which fell to the floor quickly to be forgotten, and their gestures grew frantic, driven by an urgency that made them clumsy.

The portraits on the wall tutted their disapproval from ornate frames and elaborate brush strokes. They were no longer encumbered by human wants, nor overburdened by human needs, and they remembered only too well how another such evening had ended.

Neither Draco nor Hermione paid them any mind, too lost in one another to notice or care. There was a world in turmoil outside the walls of that house — because of them and in spite of them — and they would find whatever peace they could in one another, for however long they could.


	6. In which gravity plays a part

In the end, they never got to go to the Remembrance Day events.

It was the middle of the afternoon. The sun hadn't set yet, but the snow-heavy clouds made it hard to tell. It wasn't snowing just then, but it was fiendishly cold, and Draco was glad to finally manage to drag Hermione and Teddy indoors.

The boy was not amused at their change of venue and made his displeasure known.

"But I wants," he bellowed, big, melodramatic tears streaming down his face.

"It's freezing outside." Draco dropped Teddy in a settee by the fire and took off his mud-covered boots. "You'll catch pneumonia and die. Do you want to die?"

"I wants to fly." The boy opened his arms wide and fell back on the sofa with a deep sigh.

"A little help," Draco said, looking around for Hermione. The witch was perched on top of a deer head on the far wall, next to the portrait of Nicholas Malfoy, who made glorious efforts to shoo the raven whenever she was near, which inevitably meant that had become her favourite place in the room.

The witch ignored him, so Draco was left with the unenviable task of trying to disentangle Teddy from his soaked clothes. Knowing a hopeless cause when he saw one, he waved his hand and let a drying spell do the work for him. It was a sad day when the last living Malfoy had to use what few powers were left to him to dry a snow-happy toddler, but such was life.

He stood up to take off his own cloak when he felt them, right at the edge of the wards. Hermione flew down, turning human next to him.

"They can't get past the wards," he said, brushing his fingers against hers.

"I wish they'd stop trying." She walked past him and picked up Teddy, who was starting to doze off.

He opened his mouth to say something when a sharp pain drove all the air from his lungs, forcing him down to his knees. He stared at the window, too shocked to even react. It was impossible.

Hermione tightened her arms around Teddy, who whimpered. The little boy couldn't feel them ripping apart the wards, tearing down spells that should've outlived them all, but he didn't like being squeezed, certainly not after being taken inside against his will, away from all the snow and fun. Hermione could feel it, however. Draco could see it on her face, in the shocked expression that mirrored his own. The witch was white as a sheet, all colour drained from her face. He hadn't seen her that scared since the day he had found her at the Ministry.

"Misty, Ziggy," he bellowed, jumping to his feet. This was his home and he wasn't going down without a fight. The two house-elves Apparated in the middle of the room with a soft pop. "Misty, take Teddy to the tunnels. Don't come out until I come get you. Ziggy, organise the house-elves. Defend the Manor. No one comes in but me and Hermione."

Ziggy bowed and Disapparated to carry out her orders. Misty took Teddy from Hermione and did likewise. Draco ran into the study and opened the glass case in the corner. The wooden staff inside it was more than a prop; it wouldn't serve him as well as an actual wand, but Draco needed something to focus the power of the estate — the only power available to him — and the staff would accomplish that just fine.

Hermione followed him in silence all the way to the front door, but she grabbed his sleeve before he could open it.

"There's too many of them," she said. "And they won't be casting stuns. We go out there, we might not make it back in."

"Then don't come," he said, shaking his sleeve lose of her grip. "It's not your fight."

And with that he opened the door, marching down the front steps, staff at the ready. It didn't occur to him to be afraid. Dying didn't scare him. He had faced Voldemort and Bellatrix and their army of horrors, and he knew first hand that there were plenty of things worse than death. And if he was to die that day, he'd do it on his feet, swinging that ridiculous wizard staff, taking with him as many of those who dared to step foot on his lands as he could.

Hermione paused a second and then followed him into the night.

"Well thank you very much," she muttered. "'I need you, Hermione. I can't do this without you, Hermione'".

"I can hear you."

She muttered something else indiscernible and then turned into a bird, flying off and disappearing among the trees.

Away from the lights of the Manor, everything was dark and still on the grounds. The sun had set, and dark clouds hid the moon from sight. It didn't bother him. If anything, it worked in his favour. Draco had grown up there. He had played in those woods as a boy, squandered lazy summer afternoons there as a teenager. He didn't need to see where he was going to find his way around.

He walked carefully, trying to keep noise to a minimum so as not to give them something to aim at. They weren't being as careful, but then he supposed they didn't need to be. Hermione was right; there were quite a few of them. He could feel them through the tattered wards.

Harry was there, of course. Draco wondered who else. The Weasleys were a good bet. Maybe Moody. Draco doubted that Shacklebolt — whatever he might think of Draco — would have come along for what amounted to an evening of reckless law breaking. Mad-Eye had no such qualms. In his book, once a dark wizard always a dark wizard, and Draco had done more than just get himself a Dark Mark to earn the epithet.

He heard them before he saw them. Three of them, walking towards the house.

"Ron, watch your step," Ginny said in a half-whisper. That's what Draco got for sparing the young. "You keep tripping me."

"Well, I can't bloody see where I'm going, now can I?"

"Quiet, you two," ordered Arthur Weasley.

Draco moved silently, keeping the large pine tree between himself and the trio as they walked past him towards the house. His wordless cast caused Ronald Weasley to take a dive, leading to a tirade of muttered expletives.

"Told you to watch your step." Ginny held out a hand for him, but just then something pulled her legs from under her, landing her on the frozen ground with a thud alongside her brother.

Arthur spun around, wand in hand, searching the trees, and Draco took a step back, safely outside the range of the Lumus spell.

He heard the twig snap on the ground behind him at the same time Hermione croaked a warning, and he turned around just in time for his rushed shield to absorb George's spell.

All hell broke lose.

George wasn't alone, and by then the other three knew only too well exactly where Draco was. The cold night air came alive with bangs and flashes of light. Draco was quickly surrounded but he didn't pause to assess the direness of his situation. He shielded, blocked and cast spells in a fluid motion, spinning around with a speed that he couldn't hope to keep up for long.

His staff dished out hexes and jinxes and stuns with reckless abandon, but Draco stayed away from Unforgivables and from anything that might cause permanent loss of limbs. Whatever else he may be, Draco Malfoy was no murderer. War was war and this wasn't it. He knew the difference. But put him face to face with Harry and he might revisit that stance.

It wasn't an even fight, but nor was it as one sided as it should've been. It stood to reason that a Malfoy fighting in Malfoy lands would have an advantage, and he did — there was more magic in the world than could be found in the core of a wand. But his real advantage was Hermione.

The witch was above and all around them, morphing in and out of raven form, Apparating and Disapparating in a fraction of a second, never stopping in a place longer than it took her to cast a spell, never falling more than a few inches before she was off again, gone or a bird or both. She wasn't anywhere long enough for them to hit her with anything, and before long it was diverting most of the fire from Draco, who didn't dare Disapparate without a proper wand.

Hermione did not suffer from his qualms about bodily harm. Many of her spells didn't land — casts can be quick or casts can be accurate, but seldom can they be both — but he still recognised Sectumsempra when he saw it.

It could've gone on forever without either side losing ground. For a while it seemed like it might. And then Mad-Eye blasted Hermione right out of the sky.

"No!" Draco struck the ground with the staff and the resulting shock wave knocked everyone back. He tried to halt her fall but the spell missed the small target and Hermione fell with a thud, morphing into a human just before hitting the ground.

He ran to her, indifferent to danger, falling to the ground next to the witch. She was conscious, her eyes open wide and a look of shocked surprise on her face, as if she couldn't believe that had actually happened. There were gasps behind him, muttered exclamations of "Oh my god" and "Hermione". The light of the wands showed the blood stain growing under her on the snow.

"Told you that eye of his gave me the creeps," she said weakly with a smile that turned into a grimace. Her gaze darted to a spot behind him and she grabbed the edge of his cloak, tightening her other hand around her wand. The moment Harry hit the ground next to Draco, she Disapparated them.


	7. In which things are gained and lost

One moment they were out on the frozen grounds, the next they were back in the drawing room. Hermione bit back a sob, digging her nails into his arm.

"Don't move," he said, trying to think. "You'll be all right, Hermione. You have to be."

"We made it back inside." She smiled, her lips red with blood, and then her eyes rolled back and she let go of his sleeve.

"No, no, no, no. Hermione, come on. Wake up. Ziggy! ZIGGY!"

A soft pop announced the Apparation of the house-elf a few feet behind him.

"Master," she said.

"Get Blaise Zabini."

"But master, the intruders—"

"Forget them," he snapped. "Get Zabini right now."

Ziggy Disapparated. Draco looked around, trying to think. He should take her to one of the rooms. No, he shouldn't move her. He didn't want to hurt her more than she was already hurt, but neither did he want to leave her there, on the cold, hard stone floor. He didn't know what to do and he couldn't think. He couldn't look away from her ashen, lifeless face, and he couldn't think.

He only half-registered the entrance of the Order of the Phoenix and he didn't turn to see how many of them there were. Mrs Weasley rushed to his side, kneeling down on the floor next to him.

"My darling girl," she said, stopping her hand just short of touching Hermione. "My poor, darling girl."

"You knew she was alive." Harry's voice was hard and cold. "You knew she was alive and you let us all think she was dead. This is on you, Malfoy."

Draco jumped to his feet and pushed Harry against a wall, ignoring the numerous wands immediately trained on him.

"You come into my house, MY HOUSE, and you have the nerve to say this is on me?"

"Cut it out, the both of you," Alastor Moody barked.

"Don't even get me started on you, Mad-Eye." Draco shoved Harry once more for good measure before taking a step back. He'd deal with Potter later. Hermione came first.

"We must take 'er to a 'ospital," Fleur said, trying to stop the bleeding on Bill's arm. Some of Hermione's Sectumsempras had hit something after all.

"Brilliant idea." Blaise waltzed in followed by an out-of-breath Ziggy. "Moving a critically injured person can only end well. Did they teach you that at Beauxbatons, Delacour?"

Ron, George, Ginny and Neville, who were closer to the door, immediately formed a barrier between Blaise and the rest of room, their wands aimed at the wizard.

"I don't think so, Zabini," Ginny said.

"That's Healer Zabini to you, Weaslette. Now get the fuck out of the way before your friend bleeds out."

"Let him pass," Harry said, looking sick.

Blaise knelt on the other side of Hermione, across from Mrs Weasley, who was still clutching a pink vial and openly crying, blood staining her dress where it touched the floor.

"'Ghastly, grim and ancient raven,'" he muttered, placing a hand on Hermione's forehead.

"We have Dittany," Neville offered.

"Good for you, Longbottom," he said without looking up. They watched in silence as Blaise set to work, casting spells and administering potions. Hermione remained deathly still throughout, not stirring even when he reset her dislocated shoulder.

Draco had been right — Shacklebolt was nowhere in sight. All the Weasley were there, however, even those who had only become Weasleys of late, like Fleur and Angelina. Destroying the lives of an entire family was apparently enough for them to show up in force, with torches and pitchforks. Just like one of Hermione's fairy tales.

They hadn't come alone, however. With them had come those who didn't mind breaking the law for their friends, like Lovegood and Longbottom, and those who didn't mind breaking the law at all — provided the likes of Draco ended up on the other end of an Unforgivable — like Moody.

"We should take her to one of the bedrooms," Blaise finally said, putting away his things.

"You said not to move 'er," Fleur said.

"And now I'm saying it makes no difference." He caught Draco's eye. "We can make her comfortable, that's it."

"Blaise—"

"No!" Harry almost shouted. "You don't know that. There's still time. We can still take her to St. Mungo's."

"You Apparate her out of here and she'll be dead on arrival." Blaise's tone was cold and clinical. "Even if they could do something for her at the hospital — which I'm telling you right now they can't — she'll never make it there alive."

"She Apparated us inside," Draco said, barely registering Blaise's words. "She managed to get us inside."

"And now she's unresponsive." In a kinder tone, he added, "I'm sorry, Draco, but she's dying. It's just a matter of time."

Mr Weasley patted his wife's head as she sobbed into his coat. She wasn't the only one. Everyone was openly crying — even haughty Fleur Delacour, even stony-faced Moody. Ron didn't even try to conceal his sobs. Only Harry and Draco remained dry-eyed.

"We have magic, we can…" Harry did not finish the sentence, stopping as if realising for the first time that no, they couldn't. There lay the true difference between a Muggle upbringing and a magical one. Blaise, Draco, even the Weasleys, they all knew that there was a limit to what magic could do, to what it could fix. They knew it in the same instinctive way people know they can't fly. But Harry, despite everything that had happened to him, despite everything and everyone he had lost, he still viewed magic the same way Muggles did, as something prodigious and boundless — the magic of picture books and fairy tales.

"The power it would take to save her, it doesn't exist." Blaise wasn't deliberately trying to be cruel. It just wasn't in his nature to sugarcoat hard truths. "No one has that kind of magic."

The moment Harry's gaze met Draco's he knew what the other wizard was thinking. So did Mad-Eye. The old man yelled for Harry to stop and made to intercept him, but Harry was faster. He reached Draco in a fraction of a second, placing his hand on his chest, over the seal. A blinding light filled the room and magic surged through Draco, who struggled to contain the sudden rush of power.

"If she dies, I'm going to kill you myself," Harry whispered.

If she died, he'd let him.

The wave of energy Draco cast threw the other wizard across the room and into the far wall.

"Don't ever threaten me again, Potter." From the corner of his eye he saw Moody raise his wand. "Give me an excuse, Mad-Eye. It's all I ask. You couldn't take me when I had no powers, old man."

Blaise, too poised and self-possessed ever to look shocked, limited his surprise to a raised eyebrow. Draco walked over to him and looked down at Hermione's lifeless form.

"Tell me what to do," he said.

* * *

Nothing stirred in the silent bedroom. The candles were burning low, and most of the light came from the fireplace in the corner. Hermione still hadn't woken up, but Draco took comfort from the fact that she had regained some colour. Even Blaise — who had been more than a little sceptical about Draco's ability to work a miracle — was now cautiously optimistic.

The healer was sleeping in Draco's old room, after declaring that having exhausted his considerable talents treating not just Hermione, but " _the rest of the rabble you let into your house,_ " Draco now owed him room and board.

Said rabble was now occupying the Manor's many bedrooms — all but Moody, who had refused to close his eyes lest he be murdered in his sleep, and who was stubbornly keeping vigil in the drawing room.

Harry had also refused to sleep, or even to leave Hermione's side. He had been sitting on the armchair in the corner for the past few hours without uttering a word. Not that Draco cared. He wasn't in the mood for idle chatter either. There was, however, something he wanted to know.

"How did you get past the wards?" It should have been impossible.

Harry reached into his pocket, retrieving something that shone in the faint light of the candles. He threw it at Draco, who caught it in mid-air. He held the ring on the palm of his hand. Merlin, he had been a fool.

"My father's ring." That ring had been passed down the generations from a Malfoy father to a Malfoy son for as long as anyone could remember, and he had given it away for a kiss and a few whispered words. He deserved what he got and worse. If Lucius weren't dead already, this might just kill him.

"I'm taking Teddy when I leave here," Harry said. "I'm taking Hermione too. And you're going to stay away from my friends."

Draco leaned his head back against the headboard. "Are you in a position to make demands, do you think?"

"You have your magic back." Harry's voice was dripping with loathing. "There is nothing else for you to take from me."

There was always something else. Something else to set on fire, one more way to twist the knife. But Draco was tired of fighting. His anger had burned itself out and he only felt empty. Empty and so very tired.

"Hermione is free to go and come as she pleases. I'm not keeping her here."

Silence fell again between them, a silence heavy with things unsaid. Draco brushed a curl off Hermione's forehead, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. He wondered if she was dreaming. He wondered if she was trying to wake up but couldn't, trapped inside a mind too full of horrors. The thought made his chest ache.

"She was your friend too." Harry's voice sounded too loud in the quiet bedroom. "They all were. How could you keep her from us? Use her against us?"

"Do you really want to start a conversation about the horrible things we do to the people we love?" Maybe not all his anger had burned itself out after all.

"I did what was necessary."

"And then you undid it without a second thought. You think me capable of horrors beyond anything we've seen, and you gave me back my powers in the blink of an eye. By your estimation, how many lives have you traded for hers?"

"Screw you, Malfoy. I don't expect you to understand."

He understood it well enough, the sort of Gryffindor logic born out of Gryffindor devotion and Gryffindor loyalty, and which had never once extended to him, not even when he had bled with and for them. True love, if it existed, was gold and red, and not for the likes of him. He couldn't help but resent Hermione for it, and he'd take his hate for Harry to his grave.

Just then Hermione stirred. She opened her eyes, closing them again with a frown.

"Hey, sleepyhead." Draco could hear the relief in his own voice. "Took you long enough."

The witch ran her tongue over her lips before replying in a weak voice. "You try falling forty feet, then see how well you cope."

Draco grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and helped her raise her head long enough to drink a few drops. Harry, who had kept his distance, chose that moment to approach the other side of the bed. He made to touch her, but a discharge of energy made him recoil. Hermione scrambled upright, reaching for the wand on the bed next to her and pointing it at the wizard, her shaking body between him and Draco.

"Go get Blaise," Draco said, placing a steadying hand on Hermione's back.

Harry, a look of shocked dismay on his face, did as he was told. Hermione did not lower the wand until he was out of the room.

"What was that supposed to accomplish?" Draco asked, helping her lie back down. "You can barely sit up."

"He shouldn't be here. None of them should be here."

"They'll be gone soon enough."

* * *

The invading mob left the next morning, taking Teddy with them. Hermione wasn't happy about that, not happy at all. She did not object and she did not argue, but she held on to the little boy when Harry brought him by the bedroom to say goodbye as if she would never let him go. Teddy was squirming before long, never happy to be squeezed by overly sentimental adults.

However little Hermione liked to see Teddy go, Harry liked leaving her there even less. None of them liked it, but Harry was downright mutinous. He wanted her to come with them, however little she wanted to go. They could make her see reason later.

In the end it was Molly Weasley who put some sense into him — and into Ron and George, who were all for Harry's mad plan. Hermione wasn't Imperiused; she wasn't under a spell. Her choices were her own, and Mrs Weasley would see to it that everyone there understood that with perfect clarity. And then she gave Draco a look that said that he better understand it too.

They walked down the front steps of the Manor, Disapparating a few feet away from the house, out of reach of the wards that still protected the structure itself. Harry was the last one to walk out of the front door. He paused on the doorway, looking past Draco at the staircase leading to the first floor.

"You're so obsessed with what you're taking from me," he said. "Maybe you should stop and think about what you're taking from her."

"Piss off, Harry. You know as well as I do that there's no breaking a Memory Charm. Not in any way that you or I would care to try."

Harry nodded. "Right. And she shouldn't be alive right now, either."

Without waiting for a reply, he walked off to the Apparition point, where Bill Weasley was still waiting for him.

Draco returned inside. He glanced at the marble staircase but went into the study instead, closing the door behind him. The night could have easily ended in disaster. He was still alive, Hermione was still alive, and he had his powers back. It had ended as well as he could have hoped for and much better than he no doubt deserved. Then why did he feel so utterly and completely gutted?

Maybe he really was empty inside. All this time he had been blaming it on Harry, or Voldemort, or his parents, but maybe the problem was him. Maybe he was just hollow, and he looked for things to fill that emptiness, like revenge or unlimited power, only to find out that nothing could fill it for long.

His gaze fell on the liquor cabinet in the corner. Something else to fill the void. At least this time it wasn't something that hurt anyone else.

Hermione came down late in the afternoon, waltzing in without knocking.

"It is very wrong of you to neglect me now that you have your powers back," she said, hopping on his desk as if she hadn't just fallen from the height of a three-story building. "I almost died, you know? I deserve to be pampered. You're not pampering me!"

Draco smiled despite himself and held out a hand for her. "I'm sorry. Come here."

She took the offered hand, sitting on his lap and leaning against him. She felt warm and solid and real. He tightened his arms around her, wishing they never had to leave that room.

"Stop brooding," she said.

"I'm not brooding."

"Yes, you are." She sat up, looking him in the eye. "It turned out better than even you could have planned it. You got your magic back. How can you not be happy about it?"

And then it hit him. It wasn't emptiness. It was guilt. Her falling out of the sky had got him his powers back, and he couldn't help being glad — glad that he was whole again, glad that he no longer needed to rely on someone else for the simple task of getting in and out of Diagon Alley, glad that he no longer felt like a Squib, helpless and powerless and useless.

She had almost died and he was glad. What kind of person did that make him?

He cupped her face with his hand and Hermione smiled at him, leaning into the touch. He had almost lost her. He didn't know what he would have done if he had. She closed the space between them, kissing him, and he kissed her back, because he was foolish and selfish and weak.

Harry wasn't wrong. There were many things even the Elder Wand could not accomplish, but he would never know whether he could restore her memories until he tried. And he didn't want to try. He wanted her there, with him, his. It was the worst sort of selfishness. And maybe he couldn't be a better man than that. Maybe that was all there was in him to be. But he owed it to her to try.

He leaned his forehead against hers, his hands buried in her hair. "I love you," he said, because it was true, in his own twisted, selfish way.

Hermione smiled, a soft, happy smile. "I love you too."

He knew the moment the spell worked because her expression changed, her eyes going wide with shock. She gasped, placing a hand on his chest for support, her gaze far away, seeing things that were not there. When she finally looked at him again, there were tears in her eyes.

"Goodbye, Hermione," he said, Disapparating her.


	8. For the good of Rome

He wasn't entirely sure how Blaise had managed to drag him to Abelard Worthing's party. The house and grounds were full of people he didn't know, people he had no interest in knowing, and people he despised on sight. Everyone was dressed in their finest, holding glasses of wine or champagne while they exchanged anecdotes about the war, talked about the politics of the day, or shared news about impeding marriages and new family alliances. As it turned out, there were very few steps, conversation-wise, between genocide and gossip.

Blaise was enjoying the evening, happy to mock the ignorant, ridicule the foolish and generally look down on everything and everyone.

Draco was about ready to set himself on fire.

"This wine is possibly the vilest thing I have ever had the displeasure of drinking," Blaise said, setting down his glass with a grimace.

"It's Elvish Margaux," Theo retorted. "It's horribly expensive."

"And that's exactly the problem with half-blood upstarts. They think expensive means good."

Draco, who didn't share Blaise's prejudices against French wine or the half-bloods who bought it, picked up another glass from a floating tray. Alcohol was alcohol, and it was going to take far more than he had drunk already to get him through the evening. He wasn't picky.

"Well, look who's here," Theo said, surprised. "Hermione Granger, back from the dead. So it is true."

It was as if someone had punched him. Draco openly stared at the witch, who was standing across the room, engaged in conversation with a group of witches and wizards Draco had seen around the Ministry. Her form-hugging black dress covered her arms and shoulders, hiding most of her scars, and her hair was gracefully tied up in a knot. She looked like a beautiful, elegant stranger.

"What is she doing here, Zabini?" he asked, interrupting Theo's ramblings about how generous curves and the right dress did much to atone for someone's unfortunate blood status.

Blaise smirked. "I'm sure I'm not privy to the comings and goings of the likes of Hermione Granger, and it's beyond me why you think I would be."

Because he knew him. Pansy liked to meddle because she thought she knew best. Blaise liked to set things on fire just to watch them burn.

Theo glanced from Blaise to Draco, looking curious. "I sense there's a story here."

"How remarkably insightful of you, Nott," Draco said.

Blaise patted Theo on the shoulder.

"Trust me, you don't want to poke that particular hornet's nest." Not that Blaise had any problems poking it himself.

He needed to leave, and he was never so sure of that as when she looked over and they locked eyes. The moment she did, he no longer saw the elegant, polished woman making polite conversation with high-ranking Ministry officials and committee members. He saw the mischievous, sarcastic, half-wild creature that had haunted the halls of Malfoy Manor and flown on raven wings above him.

And what a dangerous thing it was to confuse the two.

Hermione excused herself and made her way towards one of the balconies, throwing him a sideways glance. It was as much of an invitation as he was going to get. A smarter man would leave, but he had never been smart where she was concerned.

Ignoring Blaise's snide remark about pure-bloods and the sad lowering of standards in the post-war world, he made his way across the packed ballroom. The crowd parted before him, driven by magic he didn't even realise he was using. His mind ran through the basic wards that would keep them from being interrupted or overheard, casting them on the doorway as he walked across it.

The night was cold but clear, not a cloud in the sky. The snow reflected the moonlight, giving the landscape an otherworldly glow. Hermione did not give him time to utter a single word. The moment he stepped outside, the witch slapped him, the sound too loud in the relative quiet. And then she kissed him, an angry, desperate kiss that made his heart ache. He pulled her to him, turning them around and pinning her against the wall by the door, where they couldn't be seen from the room.

For a moment he let himself forget everything that had happened, everything that stood between them. For that one single, perfect moment there was only her in the world — her familiar body pressed against his, her lips, warm and demanding, her fingers buried in his hair. It was a beautiful fiction and he savoured the moment, committing it — committing her — to memory.

He closed his hand around her wrist, squeezing. Hermione gasped against his mouth, trying to get her hand free, but she was trapped between him and the wall, and he was stronger than she was. He increased the pressure, finally forcing her to open the hand. Something metallic hit the stone floor.

He glanced down at the spot where the Portkey had landed — harmless and still — a few inches away from its pouch. Never had he so hated being right.

Hermione smiled bitterly, her eyes shining in the half-light.

"What gave me away?" she asked.

"Fool me once, shame on you," he said, brushing his lips against hers. "Fool me twice, shame on me."

Hermione made to reach her wand, but he didn't give her the chance. He pushed her firmly against the wall, a hand on her throat, and summoned the offending wand. Not that it mattered. Wand or no wand, she was no match for him. None of them were.

"And where exactly was that supposed to take us?" he asked.

He could practically feel the fear radiating off her, but Hermione held his gaze.

"Why don't you pick it up and see?"

He had half a mind to. Draco had fought battles and lead armies. He had killed the Dark Lord. If they wanted a war, he'd happily give them one. See how well their little tricks served them on a fair fight. But Draco did not forget that arrogance had been Voldemort's downfall, and Grindelwald's before him. He wouldn't knowingly walk into a trap, however sure he was of being able to walk out again.

There were safer ways to find out what they were plotting. Hermione realised what he meant to do a second before he did it and tried to turn away, but he forced her to look at him.

"Legilimens."

Images flooded his mind.

 _A well-lit hallway at the Ministry. Witches and wizards cast curious glances her way when they walk by, but Hermione ignores them. The gossip is bound to die out sooner or later. She tries to focus on the words of the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures — her new boss. Tiresome, pompous man. Her smile feels forced but he doesn't notice, too busy gushing over the wonderful work she'll be doing for the department, and what a very great pleasure it is to have the renowned Hermione Granger join their team._

 _She finally spots Kingsley walking along the corridor. He's late. With him is Blaise Zabini, summoned by the Auror office to explain the discovery of a dark artifact on his family's estate. She waits until they're within earshot to interrupt Abelard Worthing._

 _"Before I forget, Mr Worthing, thank you so much for the invitation to your house party," she says, being sure to infuse her words with just the right amount of adulation. "It truly is very kind."_

 _"Not at all, Miss Granger, not at all," says the man with a self-satisfied smile._

 _The scene changes. A cramped cottage room, too full of people. What is left of the Order of the Phoenix sits around a too-small table._

 _"The wards won't hold," Bill Weasley says._

 _"Boy, I was hunting dark wizards before you were high enough to reach that kitchen counter," Moody says, none too impressed by the amount of objections the younger Weasleys have been raising. "The wards will hold. As long as Granger gets him inside the perimeter, he won't be able to get out again. And from there, Azkaban."_

 _"I don't like it." Kingsley shakes his head. "He has broken no laws. This is not right, Alastor."_

 _Moody bangs his mug against the table, mead spilling on the parchment rolled out in front of him._

 _"He has broken no laws that we can prove," he says. "And are we to wait until he does? I have seen two wars in my lifetime, Kingsley. I won't wait for the world to go up in flames a third time before I do something about it. And it's a fool who will. Malfoy is dangerous. Too dangerous. We act, and we act now."_

 _"There will be an uproar," Kingsley says, unconvinced._

 _"The cover-up is solid," Mad-Eye insists. "And if someone talks, it's still better than the alternative."_

 _No one else objects. In a room full of Weasleys and their friends, Draco has no allies._

 _"I don't like the idea of Hermione going alone," Harry says._

 _Hermione, who had been quiet up till then, speaks up._

 _"I'll be fine."_

 _The image changes again. A cosy, well-lit bedroom. Hermione is curled up on the bed, facing the wall. She can hear them talking behind her, but they sound far away, as if the bed exists in a place removed from the bedroom._

 _"Hermione, you need to eat something," Ron entreats. There's a hand on her shoulder, but Hermione doesn't move. Maybe if she's really quiet, they'll just let her be._

 _"Teddy is asking about you," Harry says. "He really misses you."_

 _He had called her "pretty bird" with a bright, big smile, and held his chubby arms to be picked up. She had thought there was no part of her heart left to break, but that had done it._

 _One more memory replaces the previous one. The master bedroom at Malfoy Manor. Draco turns in his sleep and his hand searches for her. She moves closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around her. It should make her feel trapped, unable to get away — once it would have — but now it just makes her feel safe._

 _"Why are you awake?" he mumbles without opening his eyes._

 _"Shhh, sleep."_

 _And he does, his breath warm against her skin. He could probably sleep through an earthquake. Even his nightmares don't wake him up, the way hers do. Hermione sleeps better as a bird — birds don't dream — but she wouldn't trade this for anything. In a world of uncertainty, she is certain only that right now he's there, with her. She doesn't know what tomorrow will bring, so she treasures her todays while they are within reach._

 _The memory changes. The study at Malfoy Manor now. She freezes at the sight of the Dark Mark on his arm. That image is burned into her brain. She sees it when she closes her eyes, when she tries to sleep. She sees it during the day, in the quiet moments when there's nothing to distract her from the daemons inside her head. It's the visual reminder of days spent locked in a box too small to stand or lie in, of her own screams echoing inside her head, of masked men taking what they want when they want it, of the sharp, metallic taste of blood in her mouth._

 _Draco kisses her - a soft, slow, gentle kiss that brings her back to the now, to a place where she's safe and happy and whole. His hands are warm and steady against her skin, and she wants that moment to last a lifetime. There are so many horrible things inside her head, so many memories that she cannot shake no matter how hard she tries. Maybe the trick is to make new ones, better ones, enough happy memories to bury all the bad ones._

He almost lost his balance the moment Hermione cast him off her mind.

"How dare you?" she said, shaking, tears of rage falling down her face. "You have no right."

No. No, he didn't. Draco dropped his hand from her neck, but couldn't bring himself to move away. Instead he moved closer, leaning his forehead against her shoulder. After a moment, Hermione wrapped her arms around him.

"Why did you have to restore my memory?" she asked, her voice a whisper. "I didn't know I missed them."

Draco had no good answer for that. Giving her back her memories had been the one decent thing he had done in a very long time, and he'd regret it till the day he died. She had stolen what was left of his heart and he'd mourn her loss for as long as he lived.

He kissed her before letting go, a last, desperate kiss that would always end too soon. Hermione clung to him, her fingers digging into his arms.

"Take the Portkey and go," he said, pushing her away, his voice steadier than he felt.

For a second Hermione did not move, rooted in place, and then she rushed to the golden lighter fallen on the floor, stopping short of actually touching it.

"You know this doesn't end here?" she asked, her back to him.

"I know," he said, putting his hands in his pockets. Contrary to popular belief, he _had_ learnt something from the Tale of the Three Brothers.

Hermione looked back at him over her shoulder, heartbreak and loss written all over her face. The moment her hand touched the Portkey, she disappeared.

Draco forced himself to keep breathing, trying hard to ignore the heavy weight in his chest. He thought back to the stories Hermione used to tell Teddy. Maybe people like him did not deserve a happy ending. His story, if it came to be written, would be that of someone who had made all the wrong choices and turned to ashes everything he had ever touched. It would make someone a fine cautionary tale someday, for all the good it did to him now.

But he didn't know how to be less than who he was, and he refused to just roll over and die for the likes of Alastor Moody. He had already lost everything he stood to lose. If they wanted a war, he'd give them one.

Draco took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before heading back inside.

 **The End**

* * *

 **AN: Thank you all for reading!**

 **In Chapter 4, Blaise is paraphrasing a line from a poem by William Congreve: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."**

 **In Chapter 6, the exchange between Hermione and Draco when she follows him outside to face the Order of the Phoenix paraphrases dialogue from Maleficent.**

 **In Chapter 7, Blaise is quoting from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven: "Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven"**

 **In Chapter 8, "She had stolen what was left of his heart " paraphrases Maleficent's words to Aurora: "You stole what was left of my heart, and now I've lost you forever."**


End file.
